June 2021 Update

Jun 1st, 2021 by Tim Cullings

Hello Indies!

Happy Pride Month! Hope you’re all getting in the summer mode and enjoying the weather. We have a few cool things coming up, so read below!

Get Featured for Pride Month

June is Pride Month and Seattle Indies would like to feature creators who identify as LGBTQIA or NB in our community across our social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn! We will feature one developer (or team of developers) per day with a post on each platform Fill out This Form to be included!

Monthly Recap

We had a great time highlighting our community members of AAPI descent on our social media channels and we hoped you enjoyed meeting and learning more about your fellow Seattle Indies community members. Here is a recap of all of the posts and people we highlighted this month for you to look back on. Read The Full Recap Right here!

Climate Jam wrapped up last month! Teams gathered to make games that explore solutions to address a rapidly changing planet. Together we can make a difference! Check out the 29 games for clean energy solutions. Here is a Highlight video announcing the winners. Climate Jam was a collaboration between Seattle Indies/Games For Our Future, IndieCade, LabX by the National Academy of Sciences and Georgia Tech’s Digital Digital Integrative Liberal Arts Center made possible by Niantic and Riot Forge.

Upcoming Events

Seattle Indies Expo is coming back and submissions are now open! Head over to https://six.seattleindies.org for all of the details. Submissions will remain open until June 15, 2021 @ 11:59pm. We are also looking for jurors, so sign up if you’d like to help out!

Finding Success in all the Wrong Places: Self-Publishing as a Small Indie Studio. Are you curious to learn more about the realities of independent game development? Then come join Jakub Kasztalski from Unbound Creations for our first Discord Stage Channel event on Saturday, June 5th from 3-4pm PDT! It will be on the Seattle Indies Discord server.

Practical Indie Narrative Design with Paxton: Good game stories can be hard to find and harder to craft, especially for game writers looking to break into the industry and small studios whose designers wear multiple hats. Chat and learn with other writers and narrative designers as Paxton covers strategies and tools for delivering engaging stories on an indie budget. This online-only event will be held on the Seattle Indies Discord on Saturday June 12, 2021 from 4-5:30pm Pacific.

DreamHack Beyond is coming July 24th through July 31st,  an at-home, all-digital free interactive experience showcasing the best of DreamHack. Best part is you can apply to their Indie Playground section for free! Click here for more information about the event, and click here to apply!

This month’s Game Club will focus on Raji: An Ancient Epic on June 16 at 7pm! What a book club is to a discussion of literature, this event is to a discussion of game design. Every month, we agree to play a game, then meet to discuss and analyze its design and presentation. Click here to find out more info and sign up.

Are you a composer? We are still looking for compositions to add to our Seattle Indies YouTube playlist! We will be playing the playlist on our Discord 24/7 for everyone to hear! If you want to be included on the playlist, please fill out this short form. We just need your name and your YouTube link. We are currently limiting it to one piece/YouTube link per composer.

Indie Support Group is happening weekly as well! Tune in every Saturday from 1pm on our Discord in the #isg-voice channel, Curious how to start learning something? Want to chat with someone of another discipline? Need a place to work on a project and share it with others? ISG is a social, game development focused work group that encourages people of all skill levels and disciplines to come together and collaborate for the benefit of all.

As a part of Indie Support Group we have added Feedback Circle for you to get critical feedback on your game from our community of developers. Sign up on this form and ping the indie_support_group_isg channel on Discord when you are ready to have your game reviewed.

Local Dev News

Looking for some new RPGs to play? Check out this video recapping 5 awesome titles from our local community.

A steam page went live for Which Wizard? An online fantasy social deduction game about mystery and mischief. Why don’t you head over and give it a wishlist?

Susan W and a group of volunteers will be hosting a 48-hour charity stream benefiting Child’s Play Charity from July 9-11.  It will be hosted on Twitch and feature a variety of industry guests, videogames, TTRPGs, and other segments.  Would love for y’all to give us a follow and come hang

James launched the Kickstarter for Robot Quest Arena Deckbuilding Game, an arena battle game with awesome robot minis from the creators of Star Realms! Upgrade your bot, maneuver, and blast your opponents!

Asteroidians latest release adds 6-Man Multiplayer Match! Check it out!

FLOWSTONE SAGA’s Kickstarter is Live! It’s been an honor to collaborate with the Impact Gameworks team to create sound design. There are “playable builds showcasing over an hour of our JRPG-inspired 16-bit gameplay!”(from the developers of Tangledeep).

Stuck in home, and want to explore new cities with friends and loved ones in real-time? Or do you just love word games and learning new facts about the U.S.? Check out ExceptioNULL Games’ 7th game Wordcation!

Google Play | Apple Store

Spirit Swap has been successfully funded on Kickstarter! It’s an action-puzzle game set in a lush, narrative-driven world of witchy demons. Cast spells, be queer, & crash the biggest concert of the year!

Harassment Policy, AAPI, Black Lives Matter, and Resources

Seattle Indies stands with the AAPI community. We are here for our members who have been affected by the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes both locally and nationally. For further resources to educate yourself on the issue and how to take action, here is a useful link: https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/

Seattle Indies hopes to start having in person meetups again soon. To that effect we need everyone to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus as soon as you are able. The Washington State Department of Health has this website for information on where you can get vaccinated in your area.

Seattle Indies believes the stories of the victims of sexual harassment and assault in the games industry that have been shared this past week and before. We strongly condemn the actions by people in power preying on the dreams of vulnerable people trying to make their way in the industry and strive to build an inclusive community that welcomes all minorities to provide a safe environment and a better vision for the game industry.

While our code of conduct states a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any kind we are especially sensitive to the daily challenges faced by womxn due to the ingrained sexism that has existed in the structure of the games industry for far too long. We are actively working to build a better community of game developers and we all need to do better.

Additionally Board Member August Belhumeur has offered to be a personal resource for anyone who needs help, someone to talk to or some guidance on next steps if you have experienced harassment in the industry either at our events or elsewhere. She can be reached at august@seattleindies.org.

Our friends at Take This Org have compiled valuable resources for anyone in immediate need of professional help for their situation.

Lastly, Seattle Indies and Diversity Collective+ support Black Lives Matter. Here are some resources compiled by Diversity Collective+ for how you can offer support, whether this is financial, contributing to petitions, preparing for protests, or getting informed. If you have additional resources, comment below and we will add them.

As always, keep an eye on our Discord for any last-minute news and discussion, and let us know about any projects you’re working on that you’d like shared on our Steam or Itch collections or tweeted about from  @SeattleIndies!

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